


laid it on the line

by pepperywisdom (paramountie)



Category: X Company (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-20
Updated: 2016-11-20
Packaged: 2018-09-01 01:34:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8602006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paramountie/pseuds/pepperywisdom
Summary: Tom can't sleep.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This probably doesn't fit perfectly into canon but whatever. It needed to be written.

Tom can't sleep. By the end of his first month doing this job, he'd taught himself how to sleep anywhere. He's slept on hard, concrete floors. He's slept in freezing temperatures. On one mission, there'd been no time to stop, so he'd had to sleep in quick two minute bursts throughout the day. But now, the night before the biggest invasion of the war so far, he's got insomnia. For the first time in his life, he's got insomnia.

Neil isn't sleeping either, but Tom is pretty sure he's never seen Neil sleep. Neil probably doesn't sleep. He doesn't need it. He's a lean, mean, war fighting machine.

Maybe that's unfair.

"Go to sleep," Tom says, without opening his eyes. The two of them are bunked between the same desks, heads pillowed on their jackets. They're so close that Tom can hear every single solitary sound that Neil makes, can feel a warm gust of his breath when Neil turns to look at him.

"You go to sleep," Neil replies, and there's a smile spreading across his face. Tom can hear it in his voice. It's one of his gentle, sugary smiles, the ones that he only busts out about once a month. The first time Tom saw one of those smiles, his heart nearly gave out.

The war would be over a lot quicker if they could weaponize that smile. Point it at the opposing armies and they'd have no choice but to surrender.

"I told you first," Tom says, and then he opens his eyes.

It's a mistake.

Neil's face is soft and gentle and too damn close. Tom could touch it without moving his hand more than a few inches. He could run his fingers over every single laugh line, tangle them in the bit of gray hair at Neil's temples-- the bit of gray hair that's been driving Tom crazy ever since he first noticed it.

He's so close. He could--

Nothing. He wouldn't do anything. He's being an idiot.

But something's changed in Neil's expression. The smile's fading and it's being replaced with something... serious? Intent? Tom can't read him. Reading people is his job, but that skill seems to have left him too. He can't sleep and he can't read. What kind of spy is he?

"Tom," Neil says, and maybe Tom isn't so bad at reading people after all. Because he recognizes the tone in Neil's voice. It's the same one he's been hearing in his head constantly over the past few months. Every time he's looked at Neil, stood next to Neil, spoken to Neil. That tone that's incredibly focused, slightly desperate, and a little bit in love.

"Oh," Tom says. "Alright then."

He wraps his hand around the back of Neil's head, lets his thumb brush against the laugh lines, the gray hair, and he kisses him.

It's a stupid, reckless decision but Neil kisses back, wraps his arm around Tom's waist and pulls him as close as possible.

Tom knows he should pull away, should make better decisions, should become a wise, pragmatic person, but instead he kisses Neil, and kisses him, and God, that's the only thing he wants to do for the next century.

After only a few decades, Neil pulls back. He rests his forehead against Tom's.

"Shit," he says, and Tom laughs.

"Shit," he replies.


End file.
